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One of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer (1788-1860) believed that human action is determined not by reason but by 'will' - the blind and irrational desire for physical existence. This selection of his writings on religion, ethics, politics, women, suicide, books and many other themes is taken from Schopenhauer's last work, "Parerga and Paralipom...

One of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer (1788-1860) believed that human action is determined not by reason but by 'will' - the blind and irrational desire for physical existence. This selection of his writings on religion, ethics, politics, women, suicide, books and many other themes is taken from Schopenhauer's last work, "Parerga and Paralipomena", which he published in 1851. These pieces depict humanity as locked in a struggle beyond good and evil, and each individual absolutely free within a Godless world, in which art, morality and self-awareness are our only salvation. This innovative - and pessimistic - view has proved powerfully influential upon philosophy and art, directly affecting the work of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Wagner among others.

读书笔记 · · · · · ·

p68
We all feel that we are something other than a being which someone once
created out of nothing: from this arises the confidence that, while death may
be able to end our life, it cannot end our existence.
p72
...that we should in some sense or other survive death is no greater miracle
than that of procreation, which we have before our eyes every day. What dies
goes to where al...

2015-10-03 04:09

p68
We all feel that we are something other than a being which someone once
created out of nothing: from this arises the confidence that, while death may
be able to end our life, it cannot end our existence.
p72
...that we should in some sense or other survive death is no greater miracle
than that of procreation, which we have before our eyes every day. What dies
goes to where all life originates, its own included. From this point of view
our life is to be regarded as a loan received from death, with sleep as the
daily interest on this loan.
p73
However much the plays and the masks on the world's stage may change it is
always the same actors who appear. We sit together and talk and grow excited,
and our eyes glitter and our voices grow shriller: just so did \emph{others}
sit and talk a thousand years ago: it was the same thing, and it was the
\emph{same people}: and it will be just so a thousand years hence. The
contrivance which prevents us from perceiving this is \emph{time}.
p79
The struggle with that sentinel [destruction of the body] is as a rule,
however, not as hard as it may seem to us from a distance: the reason is the
antagonism between spiritual and physical suffering. For when we are in great
or chronic physical pain we are indifferent to all other troubles: all we are
concerned about is recovering. In the same way, great spiritual suffering
makes us insensible to physical pain: we despise it: indeed, if it should come
to outweigh the other it becomes a beneficial distraction, an interval in
spiritual suffering. It is this which makes suicide easier: for the physical
pain associated with it loses all significance in the eyes of one afflicted
by excessive spiritual suffering.
p124
...if we see the individual obstinately clinging to his errors, with the mass
of men it is even worse: once they have acquired an opinion, experience and
instruction can labour for centuries against it and labour in vain. So that
there exist certain universally popular and firmly accredited errors which
countless numbers contentedly repeat every day: I have started a list of them
which others might like to continue.
1. Suicide is a cowardly act.
2. He who mistrusts others is himself dishonest.
3. Worth and genius are unfeignedly modest.
4. The insane are exceedingly unhappy.
5. Philosophizing can be learned, but not philosophy. (The opposite is true.)
6. It is easier to write a good tragedy than a good comedy.
7. A little philosophy leads away from God, a lot of it leads back to him ---
repeated after Francis Bacon.
8. Knowledge is power. The devil it is! One man can have a great deal of
knowledge without its giving him the least power, while another possesses
supreme authority but next to no knowledge.
Most of these are repeated parrot fashion without much thought being given to
them and merely because when people first heard them said they found them very
wise-sounding.
p127
With man too, however, knowledge is mostly restricted to what serves his own
motivation, although this now includes motivations less immediate which, when
taken together, are called `practical knowledge'. On the other hand, he
usually has no more \emph{free}, i.e. purposeless, knowledge than is
engendered by curiosity and the need for diversion; yet this kind of knowledge
does exist in every man, even if only to this extent. In the meantime, when
motivation is quiescent, the life of man is to a large extent filled by simple
\emph{existence}, to which fact the tremendous amount of lounging about that
goes on and the commonness of that kind of sociability which consists chiefly
in mere togetherness, without any conversation, or at the most very scanty
conversation, bear witness. Indeed, most people have --- in their hearts even
if not consciously --- as the supreme guide and maxim of their conduct the
resolve \emph{to get by with the least possible expenditure of thought},
because to them thinking is hard and burdensome. Consequently, they think
only as much as their trade or business makes absolutely necessary, and then
again as much as is demanded by their various pastimes --- which is what their
conversation is just as much as their play; but both must be so ordered that
they can be tackled with a \emph{minimum} of thought.
p134
What distinguishes a moral virtue from a moral vice is whether the basic
feeling towards others behind it is one of envy or one of pity: for every man
bears these two diametrically opposed qualities within him, inasmuch as they
arise from the comparison between his own condition and that of others which
he cannot help making; one or other of these qualities will become his basic
disposition and determine the nature of his actions according to the effect
this comparison has on his individual character. Envy reinforces the wall
between Thou and I: pity makes it thin and transparent; indeed, it sometimes
tears the wall down altogether, whereupon the distinction between I and Not-I
disappears.
p135
We have nonetheless to admit that cowardice does not seem to us to be very
consistent with a noble character, the reason being that it betrays a too
great solicitude for one's own person. Courage however implies that one is
willing to face a present evil so as to prevent a greater evil in the future,
while cowardice does the reverse. Now the nature of \emph{endurance} is
similar to that ascribed to courage, for endurance consists precisely in the
clear consciousness that there exist greater evils than those present at the
moment but that in seeking to escape or prevent the latter one might call down
the former. Courage would consequently be a kind of \emph{endurance}; and,
since it is endurance which gives us the capacity for self-denial and
self-overcoming of any kind, courage too is, through it, at any rate related
to virtue.
p136
Every good human quality is related to a bad one into which it threatens to
pass over; and every bad quality is similarly related to a good one. The
reason we so often misunderstand people is that when we first make their
acquaintance we mistake their bad qualities for the related good ones, or vice
versa: thus a prudent man will seem cowardly, a thrifty one avaricious; or a
spendthrift will seem liberal, a boor frank and straightforward, an impudent
fellow full of noble self-confidence, and so on.
p145
If you grasp this you will also see that we can really never make more than a
supposition about what we will do in any future situation, although we often
think we have made a decision about it. If, e.g., a man undertakes to do this
or that should certain circumstances arise in the future, and give this
undertaking with the firmest intention of carrying it out, even with the
liveliest desire to carry it out, this does not by any means ensure that he
\emph{will} carry it out, unless he is so constituted that his given promise
itself and as such becomes a constantly sufficient motivation, so that with
regard to his honour it operates on him like an an external compulsion. What
he will actually do when these circumstances arise can, moreover, be predicted
only from a true and perfect knowledge of his character and of the external
circumstances under whose influence he has then come; although if these
conditions were met, it could be predicted with absolute certainty. The
unalterability of our character and the necessary nature of our actions will
be brought home with uncommon force to anyone who has on any occasion behaved
as he ought not to have behaved, who has been lacking in resolution or
constancy or courage or some other quality demanded by the circumstances of
the moment. Afterwards he honestly recognizes and regrets his failing, and no
doubt thinks: `I'll do better another time.' Another time comes, the
circumstances are repeated, and he does as he did before --- to his great
astonishment.
p154
People have always been very discontented with governments, laws and public
institutions; for the most part, however, this has been only because they have
been ready to blame them for the wretchedness which pertains to human
existence as such. But this misrepresentation has never been put forward in
more deceitful and impudent a fashion than it is by the demagogues of the
present day. As enemies of Christianity, they are optimists: and according to
them the world is `an end in itself', and thus in its natural constitution an
altogether splendid structure, a regular abode of bliss. The colossal evil of
the world which cries against this idea they attribute entirely to
governments: if these would only do their duty there would be Heaven on earth,
i.e. we should all, without work or effort, cram ourselves, swill, propagate
and drop dead --- for this is a paraphrase of their `end in itself' and the
goal of the `unending progress of mankind' which in pompous phrases they never
weary of proclaiming.
p156
If, however, the individual will sets its associated power of imagination free
for a while, and for once releases it entirely from the service for which it
was made and exists, so that it abandons the tending of the will or of the
individual person which alone is its natural theme and thus its regular
occupation, and yet does not cease to be energetically active or to extend to
their fullest extent its powers of perceptivity, then it will forthwith become
completely \emph{objective}, i.e. it will become a faithful mirror of objects,
or more precisely the medium of the objectivization of the will appearing in
this or that object, the inmost nature of which will now come forth through it
the more completely the longer perception lasts, until it has been entirely
exhausted. It is only thus, with the pure subject, that there arises the pure
object, i.e. the complete manifestation of the will appearing in the object
perceived, which is precisely the (Platonic) \emph{Idea} of it. The
perception of this, however, demands that, when contemplating an object, I
really abstract its position in space and time, and thus abstract its
individuality. For it is this \emph{position}, always determined by the law
of causality, which places this object in any kind of relationship to me as an
individual; so that only when this position is done away with will the object
become an \emph{idea} and I therewith a pure subject of knowledge. This is
why a painting, by fixing for ever the fleeting moment and thus extricating it
from time, presents not the individual but the \emph{Idea}, the enduring
element in all change. But this postulated change in subject and object
requires not only that the faculty of knowledge be released from its original
servitude and given over entirely to itself, but also that it should remain
active to the full extent of its capacity, notwithstanding that the natural
spur to its activity, the instigation of the will, is now lacking. Here is
where the difficulty and thus the rarity of the thing lies; because all our
thought and endeavour, all our hearing and seeing, stand by nature directly
and indirectly in the service of our countless personal aims, big and small,
and consequently it is the \emph{will} which spurs on the faculty of knowledge
to the fulfillment of its functions, without which instigation it immediately
weakens.
...only in the condition of \emph{pure knowledge}, where will and its aims
have been completely removed from man, but with them his individuality also,
can that purely objective perception arise in which the (Platonic) Ideas of
things will be comprehended. But such a perception must always precede the
conception, i.e. the first, intuitive knowledge which afterwards constitutes
the intrinsic material and kernel, as it were the soul of an authentic work of
art or poem, or indeed of a genuine philosophy. The unpremeditated,
unintentional, indeed in part unconscious and instinctive element which has
always been remarked in works of \emph{genius} owes its origin to precisely
the fact that primal artistic knowledge is entirely separated from and
independent of will, is will-less.
p164
Drama in general, as the most perfect reflection of human existence, has three
modes of comprehending it. At the first and most frequently encountered stage
it remains at what is merely interesting: we are involved with the characters
because they pursue their own designs, which are similar to our own; the
action goes forward by means f intrigue, the nature of the characters, and
chance; wit and humour season the whole. --- At the second stage drama becomes
sentimental: pity is aroused for the hero, and through him for ourselves; the
action is for characterized by pathos, yet at the end it comes back to peace
and contentment. --- At the highest and hardest stage the \emph{tragic} is
aimed at: grievous suffering, the misery of existence is brought before us,
and the final outcome is here the vanity of all human striving. We are deeply
affected and the sensation of the will's turning away from life is aroused in
us, either directly or as a simultaneously sounding harmony.
p165
The art lies in setting the inner life into the most violent motion with the
smallest possible expenditure of outer life: for it is the inner life which is
the real object of our interest. --- The task of the novelist is not to
narrate great events but to make small ones interesting.
p168
\emph{Hope} is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability.
He who is without hope is also without fear: this is the meaning of the
expression `desperate'. For it is natural to man to believe true what he
desires to be true, and to believe it because he desires it; if this salutary
and soothing quality in his nature is obliterated by repeated ill-fortune, and
he is even brought to the point of believing that what he does not desire to
happen must happen and what he desires to happen can never happen simply
because he desires it, then this is the condition called despair.
p170
\emph{Money} is human happiness in abstracto; consequently he who is no longer
capable of happiness in concreto sets his whole heart on money.
When will crowds out knowledge we call the result obstinacy.
p171
States of human happiness and good fortune can as a rule be compared with
certain groups of trees: seen from a distance they look beautiful, but if you
go up to and into them their beauty disappears and you can no longer discover
it. That is why we so often feel envy for other people.
p227
Dilettantes! Dilettantes! --- this is the derogatory cry those who apply
themselves to art or science for the sake of gain raise against those who
pursue it for love of it and pleasure in it. This derogation rests on their
vulgar conviction that no one would take up a thing seriously unless prompted
to it by want, hunger, or some other kind of greediness. The public has the
same outlook and consequently holds the same opinion, which is the origin of
its universal respect for `the professional' and its mistrust of the
dilettante. The truth, however, is that to the dilettante the thing is the
end, while to the professional as such it is the means; and only he who is
directly interested in a thing, and occupies himself with it from love of it,
will pursue it with entire seriousness. It is from such as these, and not
from wage-earners, that the greatest things have always come.
p233
With the exception of the beautiful, good-natured or intelligent faces ---
with the exception, that is, of a very few, rare faces --- I believe that
every new face will usually arouse in a person of finer feeling a sensation
akin to terror, since it presents the disagreeable in a new and surprising
combination. As a rule it is in truth a sorry sight. There are even some
upon whose face there is imprinted such naive vulgarity and lowness of
character combined with such beast-like narroness of mind that one wonders why
they go around with such a face and do not rather wear a mask. Indeed, there
are faces at the mere sight of which one feels polluted. --- The
\emph{metaphysical} explanation of this fact would involved the consideration
that the individuality of each man is precisely that of which, through his
existence itself, he is to be cured. If, on the other hand, you are content
with the \emph{psychological} explanation, you should ask yourself what kind
of physiognomy is to be expected of those in whom in the course of a long life
there has very rarely arisen anything but petty, base, miserable thoughts and
common, selfish, base and mischievous desires. Each of them, while it was
present, set its mark on his face, and by much repetition deeply engraved
itself there.
p235
Two Chinamen visiting Europe went to the theatre for the first time. One of
them occupied himself with trying to understand the theatrical machinery,
which he succeeded in doing. The other, despite his ignorance of the
language, sought to unravel the meaning of the play. The former is like the
astronomer, the latter the philosopher.

p46
...every animal, even an infusorium, suffers pain, because knowledge, however
imperfect, is the true characteristic of animality. At each higher stage of
animal life there is a corresponding increase in pain. In the lowest animals
it is extremely slight, but even in the highest it nowhere approaches the pain
which man is capable of feeling, since even the highest animals lack thought
...

2015-09-12 11:27

p46
...every animal, even an infusorium, suffers pain, because knowledge, however
imperfect, is the true characteristic of animality. At each higher stage of
animal life there is a corresponding increase in pain. In the lowest animals
it is extremely slight, but even in the highest it nowhere approaches the pain
which man is capable of feeling, since even the highest animals lack thought
and concepts. And it is right that this capacity for pain should reach its
zenith only where, by virtue of the existence of reason, there also exists the
possibility of denial of the will: for otherwise it would be nothing but
aimless cruelty.
p50
...one might indeed consider that the appropriate from of address between man
and man ought to be, not monsieur, sir, but fellow sufferer, compagnon de
mis\`eres. However strange this may sound it corresponds to the nature of the
case, make us see other men in a true light and reminds us of what are the
most necessary of all things: tolerance, patience, forbearance and charity,
which each of us needs and which each of us therefore owes.
p54
As things are, we take no pleasure in existence except when we are striving
after something --- in which case distance and difficulties make our goal look
as if it would satisfy us (an illusion which fades when we reach it) --- or
when engaged in purely intellectual activity, in which case we are really
stepping out of life so as to regard it from outside, like spectators at a
play. Even sensual pleasure itself consists in a continual striving and
ceases as soon as its goal is reached. Whenever we are not involved in one or
other of these things but directed back to existence itself we are overtaken
by its worthlessness and vanity and this is the sensation called boredom.

p46
...every animal, even an infusorium, suffers pain, because knowledge, however
imperfect, is the true characteristic of animality. At each higher stage of
animal life there is a corresponding increase in pain. In the lowest animals
it is extremely slight, but even in the highest it nowhere approaches the pain
which man is capable of feeling, since even the highest animals lack thought
...

2015-09-12 11:27

p46
...every animal, even an infusorium, suffers pain, because knowledge, however
imperfect, is the true characteristic of animality. At each higher stage of
animal life there is a corresponding increase in pain. In the lowest animals
it is extremely slight, but even in the highest it nowhere approaches the pain
which man is capable of feeling, since even the highest animals lack thought
and concepts. And it is right that this capacity for pain should reach its
zenith only where, by virtue of the existence of reason, there also exists the
possibility of denial of the will: for otherwise it would be nothing but
aimless cruelty.
p50
...one might indeed consider that the appropriate from of address between man
and man ought to be, not monsieur, sir, but fellow sufferer, compagnon de
mis\`eres. However strange this may sound it corresponds to the nature of the
case, make us see other men in a true light and reminds us of what are the
most necessary of all things: tolerance, patience, forbearance and charity,
which each of us needs and which each of us therefore owes.
p54
As things are, we take no pleasure in existence except when we are striving
after something --- in which case distance and difficulties make our goal look
as if it would satisfy us (an illusion which fades when we reach it) --- or
when engaged in purely intellectual activity, in which case we are really
stepping out of life so as to regard it from outside, like spectators at a
play. Even sensual pleasure itself consists in a continual striving and
ceases as soon as its goal is reached. Whenever we are not involved in one or
other of these things but directed back to existence itself we are overtaken
by its worthlessness and vanity and this is the sensation called boredom.

p68
We all feel that we are something other than a being which someone once
created out of nothing: from this arises the confidence that, while death may
be able to end our life, it cannot end our existence.
p72
...that we should in some sense or other survive death is no greater miracle
than that of procreation, which we have before our eyes every day. What dies
goes to where al...

2015-10-03 04:09

p68
We all feel that we are something other than a being which someone once
created out of nothing: from this arises the confidence that, while death may
be able to end our life, it cannot end our existence.
p72
...that we should in some sense or other survive death is no greater miracle
than that of procreation, which we have before our eyes every day. What dies
goes to where all life originates, its own included. From this point of view
our life is to be regarded as a loan received from death, with sleep as the
daily interest on this loan.
p73
However much the plays and the masks on the world's stage may change it is
always the same actors who appear. We sit together and talk and grow excited,
and our eyes glitter and our voices grow shriller: just so did \emph{others}
sit and talk a thousand years ago: it was the same thing, and it was the
\emph{same people}: and it will be just so a thousand years hence. The
contrivance which prevents us from perceiving this is \emph{time}.
p79
The struggle with that sentinel [destruction of the body] is as a rule,
however, not as hard as it may seem to us from a distance: the reason is the
antagonism between spiritual and physical suffering. For when we are in great
or chronic physical pain we are indifferent to all other troubles: all we are
concerned about is recovering. In the same way, great spiritual suffering
makes us insensible to physical pain: we despise it: indeed, if it should come
to outweigh the other it becomes a beneficial distraction, an interval in
spiritual suffering. It is this which makes suicide easier: for the physical
pain associated with it loses all significance in the eyes of one afflicted
by excessive spiritual suffering.
p124
...if we see the individual obstinately clinging to his errors, with the mass
of men it is even worse: once they have acquired an opinion, experience and
instruction can labour for centuries against it and labour in vain. So that
there exist certain universally popular and firmly accredited errors which
countless numbers contentedly repeat every day: I have started a list of them
which others might like to continue.
1. Suicide is a cowardly act.
2. He who mistrusts others is himself dishonest.
3. Worth and genius are unfeignedly modest.
4. The insane are exceedingly unhappy.
5. Philosophizing can be learned, but not philosophy. (The opposite is true.)
6. It is easier to write a good tragedy than a good comedy.
7. A little philosophy leads away from God, a lot of it leads back to him ---
repeated after Francis Bacon.
8. Knowledge is power. The devil it is! One man can have a great deal of
knowledge without its giving him the least power, while another possesses
supreme authority but next to no knowledge.
Most of these are repeated parrot fashion without much thought being given to
them and merely because when people first heard them said they found them very
wise-sounding.
p127
With man too, however, knowledge is mostly restricted to what serves his own
motivation, although this now includes motivations less immediate which, when
taken together, are called `practical knowledge'. On the other hand, he
usually has no more \emph{free}, i.e. purposeless, knowledge than is
engendered by curiosity and the need for diversion; yet this kind of knowledge
does exist in every man, even if only to this extent. In the meantime, when
motivation is quiescent, the life of man is to a large extent filled by simple
\emph{existence}, to which fact the tremendous amount of lounging about that
goes on and the commonness of that kind of sociability which consists chiefly
in mere togetherness, without any conversation, or at the most very scanty
conversation, bear witness. Indeed, most people have --- in their hearts even
if not consciously --- as the supreme guide and maxim of their conduct the
resolve \emph{to get by with the least possible expenditure of thought},
because to them thinking is hard and burdensome. Consequently, they think
only as much as their trade or business makes absolutely necessary, and then
again as much as is demanded by their various pastimes --- which is what their
conversation is just as much as their play; but both must be so ordered that
they can be tackled with a \emph{minimum} of thought.
p134
What distinguishes a moral virtue from a moral vice is whether the basic
feeling towards others behind it is one of envy or one of pity: for every man
bears these two diametrically opposed qualities within him, inasmuch as they
arise from the comparison between his own condition and that of others which
he cannot help making; one or other of these qualities will become his basic
disposition and determine the nature of his actions according to the effect
this comparison has on his individual character. Envy reinforces the wall
between Thou and I: pity makes it thin and transparent; indeed, it sometimes
tears the wall down altogether, whereupon the distinction between I and Not-I
disappears.
p135
We have nonetheless to admit that cowardice does not seem to us to be very
consistent with a noble character, the reason being that it betrays a too
great solicitude for one's own person. Courage however implies that one is
willing to face a present evil so as to prevent a greater evil in the future,
while cowardice does the reverse. Now the nature of \emph{endurance} is
similar to that ascribed to courage, for endurance consists precisely in the
clear consciousness that there exist greater evils than those present at the
moment but that in seeking to escape or prevent the latter one might call down
the former. Courage would consequently be a kind of \emph{endurance}; and,
since it is endurance which gives us the capacity for self-denial and
self-overcoming of any kind, courage too is, through it, at any rate related
to virtue.
p136
Every good human quality is related to a bad one into which it threatens to
pass over; and every bad quality is similarly related to a good one. The
reason we so often misunderstand people is that when we first make their
acquaintance we mistake their bad qualities for the related good ones, or vice
versa: thus a prudent man will seem cowardly, a thrifty one avaricious; or a
spendthrift will seem liberal, a boor frank and straightforward, an impudent
fellow full of noble self-confidence, and so on.
p145
If you grasp this you will also see that we can really never make more than a
supposition about what we will do in any future situation, although we often
think we have made a decision about it. If, e.g., a man undertakes to do this
or that should certain circumstances arise in the future, and give this
undertaking with the firmest intention of carrying it out, even with the
liveliest desire to carry it out, this does not by any means ensure that he
\emph{will} carry it out, unless he is so constituted that his given promise
itself and as such becomes a constantly sufficient motivation, so that with
regard to his honour it operates on him like an an external compulsion. What
he will actually do when these circumstances arise can, moreover, be predicted
only from a true and perfect knowledge of his character and of the external
circumstances under whose influence he has then come; although if these
conditions were met, it could be predicted with absolute certainty. The
unalterability of our character and the necessary nature of our actions will
be brought home with uncommon force to anyone who has on any occasion behaved
as he ought not to have behaved, who has been lacking in resolution or
constancy or courage or some other quality demanded by the circumstances of
the moment. Afterwards he honestly recognizes and regrets his failing, and no
doubt thinks: `I'll do better another time.' Another time comes, the
circumstances are repeated, and he does as he did before --- to his great
astonishment.
p154
People have always been very discontented with governments, laws and public
institutions; for the most part, however, this has been only because they have
been ready to blame them for the wretchedness which pertains to human
existence as such. But this misrepresentation has never been put forward in
more deceitful and impudent a fashion than it is by the demagogues of the
present day. As enemies of Christianity, they are optimists: and according to
them the world is `an end in itself', and thus in its natural constitution an
altogether splendid structure, a regular abode of bliss. The colossal evil of
the world which cries against this idea they attribute entirely to
governments: if these would only do their duty there would be Heaven on earth,
i.e. we should all, without work or effort, cram ourselves, swill, propagate
and drop dead --- for this is a paraphrase of their `end in itself' and the
goal of the `unending progress of mankind' which in pompous phrases they never
weary of proclaiming.
p156
If, however, the individual will sets its associated power of imagination free
for a while, and for once releases it entirely from the service for which it
was made and exists, so that it abandons the tending of the will or of the
individual person which alone is its natural theme and thus its regular
occupation, and yet does not cease to be energetically active or to extend to
their fullest extent its powers of perceptivity, then it will forthwith become
completely \emph{objective}, i.e. it will become a faithful mirror of objects,
or more precisely the medium of the objectivization of the will appearing in
this or that object, the inmost nature of which will now come forth through it
the more completely the longer perception lasts, until it has been entirely
exhausted. It is only thus, with the pure subject, that there arises the pure
object, i.e. the complete manifestation of the will appearing in the object
perceived, which is precisely the (Platonic) \emph{Idea} of it. The
perception of this, however, demands that, when contemplating an object, I
really abstract its position in space and time, and thus abstract its
individuality. For it is this \emph{position}, always determined by the law
of causality, which places this object in any kind of relationship to me as an
individual; so that only when this position is done away with will the object
become an \emph{idea} and I therewith a pure subject of knowledge. This is
why a painting, by fixing for ever the fleeting moment and thus extricating it
from time, presents not the individual but the \emph{Idea}, the enduring
element in all change. But this postulated change in subject and object
requires not only that the faculty of knowledge be released from its original
servitude and given over entirely to itself, but also that it should remain
active to the full extent of its capacity, notwithstanding that the natural
spur to its activity, the instigation of the will, is now lacking. Here is
where the difficulty and thus the rarity of the thing lies; because all our
thought and endeavour, all our hearing and seeing, stand by nature directly
and indirectly in the service of our countless personal aims, big and small,
and consequently it is the \emph{will} which spurs on the faculty of knowledge
to the fulfillment of its functions, without which instigation it immediately
weakens.
...only in the condition of \emph{pure knowledge}, where will and its aims
have been completely removed from man, but with them his individuality also,
can that purely objective perception arise in which the (Platonic) Ideas of
things will be comprehended. But such a perception must always precede the
conception, i.e. the first, intuitive knowledge which afterwards constitutes
the intrinsic material and kernel, as it were the soul of an authentic work of
art or poem, or indeed of a genuine philosophy. The unpremeditated,
unintentional, indeed in part unconscious and instinctive element which has
always been remarked in works of \emph{genius} owes its origin to precisely
the fact that primal artistic knowledge is entirely separated from and
independent of will, is will-less.
p164
Drama in general, as the most perfect reflection of human existence, has three
modes of comprehending it. At the first and most frequently encountered stage
it remains at what is merely interesting: we are involved with the characters
because they pursue their own designs, which are similar to our own; the
action goes forward by means f intrigue, the nature of the characters, and
chance; wit and humour season the whole. --- At the second stage drama becomes
sentimental: pity is aroused for the hero, and through him for ourselves; the
action is for characterized by pathos, yet at the end it comes back to peace
and contentment. --- At the highest and hardest stage the \emph{tragic} is
aimed at: grievous suffering, the misery of existence is brought before us,
and the final outcome is here the vanity of all human striving. We are deeply
affected and the sensation of the will's turning away from life is aroused in
us, either directly or as a simultaneously sounding harmony.
p165
The art lies in setting the inner life into the most violent motion with the
smallest possible expenditure of outer life: for it is the inner life which is
the real object of our interest. --- The task of the novelist is not to
narrate great events but to make small ones interesting.
p168
\emph{Hope} is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability.
He who is without hope is also without fear: this is the meaning of the
expression `desperate'. For it is natural to man to believe true what he
desires to be true, and to believe it because he desires it; if this salutary
and soothing quality in his nature is obliterated by repeated ill-fortune, and
he is even brought to the point of believing that what he does not desire to
happen must happen and what he desires to happen can never happen simply
because he desires it, then this is the condition called despair.
p170
\emph{Money} is human happiness in abstracto; consequently he who is no longer
capable of happiness in concreto sets his whole heart on money.
When will crowds out knowledge we call the result obstinacy.
p171
States of human happiness and good fortune can as a rule be compared with
certain groups of trees: seen from a distance they look beautiful, but if you
go up to and into them their beauty disappears and you can no longer discover
it. That is why we so often feel envy for other people.
p227
Dilettantes! Dilettantes! --- this is the derogatory cry those who apply
themselves to art or science for the sake of gain raise against those who
pursue it for love of it and pleasure in it. This derogation rests on their
vulgar conviction that no one would take up a thing seriously unless prompted
to it by want, hunger, or some other kind of greediness. The public has the
same outlook and consequently holds the same opinion, which is the origin of
its universal respect for `the professional' and its mistrust of the
dilettante. The truth, however, is that to the dilettante the thing is the
end, while to the professional as such it is the means; and only he who is
directly interested in a thing, and occupies himself with it from love of it,
will pursue it with entire seriousness. It is from such as these, and not
from wage-earners, that the greatest things have always come.
p233
With the exception of the beautiful, good-natured or intelligent faces ---
with the exception, that is, of a very few, rare faces --- I believe that
every new face will usually arouse in a person of finer feeling a sensation
akin to terror, since it presents the disagreeable in a new and surprising
combination. As a rule it is in truth a sorry sight. There are even some
upon whose face there is imprinted such naive vulgarity and lowness of
character combined with such beast-like narroness of mind that one wonders why
they go around with such a face and do not rather wear a mask. Indeed, there
are faces at the mere sight of which one feels polluted. --- The
\emph{metaphysical} explanation of this fact would involved the consideration
that the individuality of each man is precisely that of which, through his
existence itself, he is to be cured. If, on the other hand, you are content
with the \emph{psychological} explanation, you should ask yourself what kind
of physiognomy is to be expected of those in whom in the course of a long life
there has very rarely arisen anything but petty, base, miserable thoughts and
common, selfish, base and mischievous desires. Each of them, while it was
present, set its mark on his face, and by much repetition deeply engraved
itself there.
p235
Two Chinamen visiting Europe went to the theatre for the first time. One of
them occupied himself with trying to understand the theatrical machinery,
which he succeeded in doing. The other, despite his ignorance of the
language, sought to unravel the meaning of the play. The former is like the
astronomer, the latter the philosopher.

p68
We all feel that we are something other than a being which someone once
created out of nothing: from this arises the confidence that, while death may
be able to end our life, it cannot end our existence.
p72
...that we should in some sense or other survive death is no greater miracle
than that of procreation, which we have before our eyes every day. What dies
goes to where al...

2015-10-03 04:09

p68
We all feel that we are something other than a being which someone once
created out of nothing: from this arises the confidence that, while death may
be able to end our life, it cannot end our existence.
p72
...that we should in some sense or other survive death is no greater miracle
than that of procreation, which we have before our eyes every day. What dies
goes to where all life originates, its own included. From this point of view
our life is to be regarded as a loan received from death, with sleep as the
daily interest on this loan.
p73
However much the plays and the masks on the world's stage may change it is
always the same actors who appear. We sit together and talk and grow excited,
and our eyes glitter and our voices grow shriller: just so did \emph{others}
sit and talk a thousand years ago: it was the same thing, and it was the
\emph{same people}: and it will be just so a thousand years hence. The
contrivance which prevents us from perceiving this is \emph{time}.
p79
The struggle with that sentinel [destruction of the body] is as a rule,
however, not as hard as it may seem to us from a distance: the reason is the
antagonism between spiritual and physical suffering. For when we are in great
or chronic physical pain we are indifferent to all other troubles: all we are
concerned about is recovering. In the same way, great spiritual suffering
makes us insensible to physical pain: we despise it: indeed, if it should come
to outweigh the other it becomes a beneficial distraction, an interval in
spiritual suffering. It is this which makes suicide easier: for the physical
pain associated with it loses all significance in the eyes of one afflicted
by excessive spiritual suffering.
p124
...if we see the individual obstinately clinging to his errors, with the mass
of men it is even worse: once they have acquired an opinion, experience and
instruction can labour for centuries against it and labour in vain. So that
there exist certain universally popular and firmly accredited errors which
countless numbers contentedly repeat every day: I have started a list of them
which others might like to continue.
1. Suicide is a cowardly act.
2. He who mistrusts others is himself dishonest.
3. Worth and genius are unfeignedly modest.
4. The insane are exceedingly unhappy.
5. Philosophizing can be learned, but not philosophy. (The opposite is true.)
6. It is easier to write a good tragedy than a good comedy.
7. A little philosophy leads away from God, a lot of it leads back to him ---
repeated after Francis Bacon.
8. Knowledge is power. The devil it is! One man can have a great deal of
knowledge without its giving him the least power, while another possesses
supreme authority but next to no knowledge.
Most of these are repeated parrot fashion without much thought being given to
them and merely because when people first heard them said they found them very
wise-sounding.
p127
With man too, however, knowledge is mostly restricted to what serves his own
motivation, although this now includes motivations less immediate which, when
taken together, are called `practical knowledge'. On the other hand, he
usually has no more \emph{free}, i.e. purposeless, knowledge than is
engendered by curiosity and the need for diversion; yet this kind of knowledge
does exist in every man, even if only to this extent. In the meantime, when
motivation is quiescent, the life of man is to a large extent filled by simple
\emph{existence}, to which fact the tremendous amount of lounging about that
goes on and the commonness of that kind of sociability which consists chiefly
in mere togetherness, without any conversation, or at the most very scanty
conversation, bear witness. Indeed, most people have --- in their hearts even
if not consciously --- as the supreme guide and maxim of their conduct the
resolve \emph{to get by with the least possible expenditure of thought},
because to them thinking is hard and burdensome. Consequently, they think
only as much as their trade or business makes absolutely necessary, and then
again as much as is demanded by their various pastimes --- which is what their
conversation is just as much as their play; but both must be so ordered that
they can be tackled with a \emph{minimum} of thought.
p134
What distinguishes a moral virtue from a moral vice is whether the basic
feeling towards others behind it is one of envy or one of pity: for every man
bears these two diametrically opposed qualities within him, inasmuch as they
arise from the comparison between his own condition and that of others which
he cannot help making; one or other of these qualities will become his basic
disposition and determine the nature of his actions according to the effect
this comparison has on his individual character. Envy reinforces the wall
between Thou and I: pity makes it thin and transparent; indeed, it sometimes
tears the wall down altogether, whereupon the distinction between I and Not-I
disappears.
p135
We have nonetheless to admit that cowardice does not seem to us to be very
consistent with a noble character, the reason being that it betrays a too
great solicitude for one's own person. Courage however implies that one is
willing to face a present evil so as to prevent a greater evil in the future,
while cowardice does the reverse. Now the nature of \emph{endurance} is
similar to that ascribed to courage, for endurance consists precisely in the
clear consciousness that there exist greater evils than those present at the
moment but that in seeking to escape or prevent the latter one might call down
the former. Courage would consequently be a kind of \emph{endurance}; and,
since it is endurance which gives us the capacity for self-denial and
self-overcoming of any kind, courage too is, through it, at any rate related
to virtue.
p136
Every good human quality is related to a bad one into which it threatens to
pass over; and every bad quality is similarly related to a good one. The
reason we so often misunderstand people is that when we first make their
acquaintance we mistake their bad qualities for the related good ones, or vice
versa: thus a prudent man will seem cowardly, a thrifty one avaricious; or a
spendthrift will seem liberal, a boor frank and straightforward, an impudent
fellow full of noble self-confidence, and so on.
p145
If you grasp this you will also see that we can really never make more than a
supposition about what we will do in any future situation, although we often
think we have made a decision about it. If, e.g., a man undertakes to do this
or that should certain circumstances arise in the future, and give this
undertaking with the firmest intention of carrying it out, even with the
liveliest desire to carry it out, this does not by any means ensure that he
\emph{will} carry it out, unless he is so constituted that his given promise
itself and as such becomes a constantly sufficient motivation, so that with
regard to his honour it operates on him like an an external compulsion. What
he will actually do when these circumstances arise can, moreover, be predicted
only from a true and perfect knowledge of his character and of the external
circumstances under whose influence he has then come; although if these
conditions were met, it could be predicted with absolute certainty. The
unalterability of our character and the necessary nature of our actions will
be brought home with uncommon force to anyone who has on any occasion behaved
as he ought not to have behaved, who has been lacking in resolution or
constancy or courage or some other quality demanded by the circumstances of
the moment. Afterwards he honestly recognizes and regrets his failing, and no
doubt thinks: `I'll do better another time.' Another time comes, the
circumstances are repeated, and he does as he did before --- to his great
astonishment.
p154
People have always been very discontented with governments, laws and public
institutions; for the most part, however, this has been only because they have
been ready to blame them for the wretchedness which pertains to human
existence as such. But this misrepresentation has never been put forward in
more deceitful and impudent a fashion than it is by the demagogues of the
present day. As enemies of Christianity, they are optimists: and according to
them the world is `an end in itself', and thus in its natural constitution an
altogether splendid structure, a regular abode of bliss. The colossal evil of
the world which cries against this idea they attribute entirely to
governments: if these would only do their duty there would be Heaven on earth,
i.e. we should all, without work or effort, cram ourselves, swill, propagate
and drop dead --- for this is a paraphrase of their `end in itself' and the
goal of the `unending progress of mankind' which in pompous phrases they never
weary of proclaiming.
p156
If, however, the individual will sets its associated power of imagination free
for a while, and for once releases it entirely from the service for which it
was made and exists, so that it abandons the tending of the will or of the
individual person which alone is its natural theme and thus its regular
occupation, and yet does not cease to be energetically active or to extend to
their fullest extent its powers of perceptivity, then it will forthwith become
completely \emph{objective}, i.e. it will become a faithful mirror of objects,
or more precisely the medium of the objectivization of the will appearing in
this or that object, the inmost nature of which will now come forth through it
the more completely the longer perception lasts, until it has been entirely
exhausted. It is only thus, with the pure subject, that there arises the pure
object, i.e. the complete manifestation of the will appearing in the object
perceived, which is precisely the (Platonic) \emph{Idea} of it. The
perception of this, however, demands that, when contemplating an object, I
really abstract its position in space and time, and thus abstract its
individuality. For it is this \emph{position}, always determined by the law
of causality, which places this object in any kind of relationship to me as an
individual; so that only when this position is done away with will the object
become an \emph{idea} and I therewith a pure subject of knowledge. This is
why a painting, by fixing for ever the fleeting moment and thus extricating it
from time, presents not the individual but the \emph{Idea}, the enduring
element in all change. But this postulated change in subject and object
requires not only that the faculty of knowledge be released from its original
servitude and given over entirely to itself, but also that it should remain
active to the full extent of its capacity, notwithstanding that the natural
spur to its activity, the instigation of the will, is now lacking. Here is
where the difficulty and thus the rarity of the thing lies; because all our
thought and endeavour, all our hearing and seeing, stand by nature directly
and indirectly in the service of our countless personal aims, big and small,
and consequently it is the \emph{will} which spurs on the faculty of knowledge
to the fulfillment of its functions, without which instigation it immediately
weakens.
...only in the condition of \emph{pure knowledge}, where will and its aims
have been completely removed from man, but with them his individuality also,
can that purely objective perception arise in which the (Platonic) Ideas of
things will be comprehended. But such a perception must always precede the
conception, i.e. the first, intuitive knowledge which afterwards constitutes
the intrinsic material and kernel, as it were the soul of an authentic work of
art or poem, or indeed of a genuine philosophy. The unpremeditated,
unintentional, indeed in part unconscious and instinctive element which has
always been remarked in works of \emph{genius} owes its origin to precisely
the fact that primal artistic knowledge is entirely separated from and
independent of will, is will-less.
p164
Drama in general, as the most perfect reflection of human existence, has three
modes of comprehending it. At the first and most frequently encountered stage
it remains at what is merely interesting: we are involved with the characters
because they pursue their own designs, which are similar to our own; the
action goes forward by means f intrigue, the nature of the characters, and
chance; wit and humour season the whole. --- At the second stage drama becomes
sentimental: pity is aroused for the hero, and through him for ourselves; the
action is for characterized by pathos, yet at the end it comes back to peace
and contentment. --- At the highest and hardest stage the \emph{tragic} is
aimed at: grievous suffering, the misery of existence is brought before us,
and the final outcome is here the vanity of all human striving. We are deeply
affected and the sensation of the will's turning away from life is aroused in
us, either directly or as a simultaneously sounding harmony.
p165
The art lies in setting the inner life into the most violent motion with the
smallest possible expenditure of outer life: for it is the inner life which is
the real object of our interest. --- The task of the novelist is not to
narrate great events but to make small ones interesting.
p168
\emph{Hope} is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability.
He who is without hope is also without fear: this is the meaning of the
expression `desperate'. For it is natural to man to believe true what he
desires to be true, and to believe it because he desires it; if this salutary
and soothing quality in his nature is obliterated by repeated ill-fortune, and
he is even brought to the point of believing that what he does not desire to
happen must happen and what he desires to happen can never happen simply
because he desires it, then this is the condition called despair.
p170
\emph{Money} is human happiness in abstracto; consequently he who is no longer
capable of happiness in concreto sets his whole heart on money.
When will crowds out knowledge we call the result obstinacy.
p171
States of human happiness and good fortune can as a rule be compared with
certain groups of trees: seen from a distance they look beautiful, but if you
go up to and into them their beauty disappears and you can no longer discover
it. That is why we so often feel envy for other people.
p227
Dilettantes! Dilettantes! --- this is the derogatory cry those who apply
themselves to art or science for the sake of gain raise against those who
pursue it for love of it and pleasure in it. This derogation rests on their
vulgar conviction that no one would take up a thing seriously unless prompted
to it by want, hunger, or some other kind of greediness. The public has the
same outlook and consequently holds the same opinion, which is the origin of
its universal respect for `the professional' and its mistrust of the
dilettante. The truth, however, is that to the dilettante the thing is the
end, while to the professional as such it is the means; and only he who is
directly interested in a thing, and occupies himself with it from love of it,
will pursue it with entire seriousness. It is from such as these, and not
from wage-earners, that the greatest things have always come.
p233
With the exception of the beautiful, good-natured or intelligent faces ---
with the exception, that is, of a very few, rare faces --- I believe that
every new face will usually arouse in a person of finer feeling a sensation
akin to terror, since it presents the disagreeable in a new and surprising
combination. As a rule it is in truth a sorry sight. There are even some
upon whose face there is imprinted such naive vulgarity and lowness of
character combined with such beast-like narroness of mind that one wonders why
they go around with such a face and do not rather wear a mask. Indeed, there
are faces at the mere sight of which one feels polluted. --- The
\emph{metaphysical} explanation of this fact would involved the consideration
that the individuality of each man is precisely that of which, through his
existence itself, he is to be cured. If, on the other hand, you are content
with the \emph{psychological} explanation, you should ask yourself what kind
of physiognomy is to be expected of those in whom in the course of a long life
there has very rarely arisen anything but petty, base, miserable thoughts and
common, selfish, base and mischievous desires. Each of them, while it was
present, set its mark on his face, and by much repetition deeply engraved
itself there.
p235
Two Chinamen visiting Europe went to the theatre for the first time. One of
them occupied himself with trying to understand the theatrical machinery,
which he succeeded in doing. The other, despite his ignorance of the
language, sought to unravel the meaning of the play. The former is like the
astronomer, the latter the philosopher.

p46
...every animal, even an infusorium, suffers pain, because knowledge, however
imperfect, is the true characteristic of animality. At each higher stage of
animal life there is a corresponding increase in pain. In the lowest animals
it is extremely slight, but even in the highest it nowhere approaches the pain
which man is capable of feeling, since even the highest animals lack thought
...

2015-09-12 11:27

p46
...every animal, even an infusorium, suffers pain, because knowledge, however
imperfect, is the true characteristic of animality. At each higher stage of
animal life there is a corresponding increase in pain. In the lowest animals
it is extremely slight, but even in the highest it nowhere approaches the pain
which man is capable of feeling, since even the highest animals lack thought
and concepts. And it is right that this capacity for pain should reach its
zenith only where, by virtue of the existence of reason, there also exists the
possibility of denial of the will: for otherwise it would be nothing but
aimless cruelty.
p50
...one might indeed consider that the appropriate from of address between man
and man ought to be, not monsieur, sir, but fellow sufferer, compagnon de
mis\`eres. However strange this may sound it corresponds to the nature of the
case, make us see other men in a true light and reminds us of what are the
most necessary of all things: tolerance, patience, forbearance and charity,
which each of us needs and which each of us therefore owes.
p54
As things are, we take no pleasure in existence except when we are striving
after something --- in which case distance and difficulties make our goal look
as if it would satisfy us (an illusion which fades when we reach it) --- or
when engaged in purely intellectual activity, in which case we are really
stepping out of life so as to regard it from outside, like spectators at a
play. Even sensual pleasure itself consists in a continual striving and
ceases as soon as its goal is reached. Whenever we are not involved in one or
other of these things but directed back to existence itself we are overtaken
by its worthlessness and vanity and this is the sensation called boredom.